Posted on 05/09/2014 9:49:39 PM PDT by Cronos
AMERICA has by far the largest rail network in the world, with more than twice as much track as China. But it lags far behind other first-world countries in ridership. Instead of passengers, most of America's massive rail network is used to carry freight. Why don't Americans ride trains?
..the Japanese, the Swiss, the French, the Danes, the Russians, the Austrians, the Ukrainians, the Belarussians and the Belgians all accounted for more than 1,000 passenger-kilometres by rail in 2011; Americans accounted for 80. Amtrak carries 31m passengers per year. Mozambique's railways carried 108m passengers in 2011.
There are many reasons why Americans don't ride the rails as often as their European cousins. Most obviously, America is bigger than most European countries. Outside the northeast corridor, the central Texas megalopolis, California and the eastern Midwest, density is sometimes too low to support intercity train travel. Underinvestment, and a preference for shiny new visions over boring upgrades, has not helped. Most American passenger trains travel on tracks that are owned by freight companies. That means most trains have to defer to freight services, leading to lengthy delays that scare off passengers who want to arrive on time.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
The Mount Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire (still in operation) once connected to the Boston & Maine Railway. Nowadays, one can only drive to meet this train.
Thats why you get the sleeper room. See my Post #60.
I forgot to mention in the post about coach - it was nasty from CHI-SEA. After one day, it got really ripe in those cars and the "coachers" were all hunched over from sitting in the seats. Also, no shower facilities for them. Unfortunately, I had to walk through those cars to get to the Bar Car ...
OTOH, we people up in First Class had private rooms with beds, maid/turn-down service, complimentary coffee and continental breakfast, daily newspapers, full shower facilities, etc.
Forgot to mention private toilets in the sleeper rooms ...
What’s a train?
Doesn’t that just make you disappointed, in the fact that they had a system, if used properly and streamlined for the future, it would have given people transportation to work, and into the city....where no one drives.
I think they had eliminated some of the stops along the way to Bethlehem, Quaker town, Reading etc...meaning less riders. If you don’t stop there, then the loss of use means less revenue. I think closing the train stations could have happened without losing the use of the platform for basic stops early morning and late evening, don’t you?
I left up there mid-70s...but I used to take the train to Philly and other places back then. I loved it. However it goes back to who understands how to make the right changes to preserve the service....evidently no one knew what to do.
Unfortunately most Amtrak stations I've seen are out in the middle of nowhere, with none of the surrounding services to support travelers (hotel, restaurant, car rental) such as you'd see at an airport. You'd be lucky to find a vending machine, and good luck calling a cab. You don't want to disembark at such a place at 2:00 a.m.
West Oakland used to be a transit hub, but the train station is a decrepit shell closed by the '89 quake, which also crushed the freeway and caused the rail lines to be routed away. In olden times that Southern Pacific rail depot was surrounded by hotels and restaurants. No more.
(to your posts 60 and 62 also)
Sounds like a fun trip! You traveled like royalty. I’m feeling a twinge of envy. :)
I've gone cross-country on Amtrak, and being poor, I couldn't afford a sleeper. 2 and a half days from Seattle to Chicago in a partially reclining seat was pure misery.
I'll give points for the scenery, though.
Well, except for North Dakota at night.
Not much better in daytime.
The road situation isn’t all that much better. PA route 309 is wider than it used to be, but it’s quite jammed going through Quakertown. Forget about route 611. What is now I-476 is out of the way and itself subject to long tailbacks.
The railroad between Quakertown and Bethlehem has been rail-trailed; those have no economic value, and some of those are becoming havens for muggers. (Yes, there is no railroad connecting Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley anymore; trains have to go the long way via Reading.) I won’t even get into the folly of closing down the steel plant.
I walk 40 feet to my automobile. I can drive a 300 mile radius on a tank of gas that costs about $100 to another door when I want to go.
I feel a song coming on.
1. because trains represent technology that is at least a century older than the automobile
2. because for a variety of reasons trains are not a necessity for most Americans
3. because in most cases trains are not economically efficient means of transportation and can only operate if the cost of operation - not just infrastructure but operation - is subsidized
so Americans rightly say - why bother
27-gallon tank and 11 mpg?
Some years ago you could board the the Union Pacific’s City of Denver in Chicago in the evening after a days work, and arrive in Denver the next morning, fresh and ready for your business there. Convenience for the business traveler.
Like I said in my post, if you have to go a long distance and you have the time, it is pretty economical. The cost of the 30-day rail pass was about $400 and the cost of the sleeper was about $100/day ...
Unfortunately, SEA-MT is not a long distance - even round trip ...
Trains are actually about a half-century older than automobiles, with the first example of the latter technology using the internal combustion engine emerging around 1886. And when it comes to experimental automobiles powered by steam, the first examples actually preceded the railroad locomotive by a few years.
The issue here from an American perspective isn’t really about necessity, but about market choice. The government has limited those choices for us.
It's the folly of dying. I was there in the 70's . I even went on an open house tour of the plant. They described the "oxygen lance", which was supported by a feed which went under the river. We watched a charge go into the bucket. It was awesome. Saw a rolling mill too. Then I recall a drop forge which was very retro. Manually manipulated via block and tackle. What the hey. That stuck in my mind.
I still visit there. It's been converted to a casino, LOL, as I suppose you know.
What I HATE are gum chewers, who seem to find me whenever I have taken any form of public transportation.
I just don't want to sit there and travel across the whole damned country with some cow muncher chewing gum in my face.
Thanks to having been tormented with that disgusting habit by several family members, I can't stand the sight, the sound, or the stench of gum chewing. I just hate, hate, hate it.... the habit and the chewers
Theodore Dalrymple has an article somewhere on his website about being fed up to the back teeth with chewing gum.
HE says that to him, it is both bovine and also aggressive. I find that I must agree with him.
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